Tag: Walter Benjamin

by Pericles Lewis In his “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (1940), the German-Jewish literary critic Walter Benjamin presents a striking image of the fear that the individual human being had lost control of time in a modernity characterized by the rapid succession of world-changing historical events. Benjamin writes of Paul Klee’s painting “Angelus Novus”… Continue Reading Theses on the Philosophy of History

by Erik Larsen Introduction and Historical Information Despite its relative brevity, Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” continues to inspire significant scholarly attention as a major work in the history of modern aesthetic and political criticism. The essay is credited with developing an insightful interpretation of the role… Continue Reading The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction